Why are the devs unable to make the Scourge Warlock a viable class for PvP?

ogarious · March 2015

I mean seriously guys. Just came back from test, taking my fully geared, rank 9 with legendary gear and all boons equiptment against a new Paladin in Icewind Dale.

And I couldnt even get the guy below 75% hitpoints. I tried everything, No amount of damage that I put out on him even scratched him. I hit him with flames of P. and it did 11k damage TOTAL. My pet, and I went damnation line on this. Was 2 shotted by the guy.

I inspect him and he has....blue gear.... Blue gear with no artifact equiptment and I cant even fricken touch him.

In what world would you honestly expect someone to stay with your game looking at this.

Akromatic, I grouped with you last week on the Kessel fight. I was on Mesaana, you played the SW and did 1/4 of the damage I put out with a CW running Draconic gear with no glyphs running the Master of flames tree.

Shouldnt that tell you something. Mod 6 is little over a week away. How the heck do the devs expect Scourge Warlocks to compete?

Why should we stay?

rversant · March 2015

ogarious wrote: »

I mean seriously guys. Just came back from test, taking my fully geared, rank 9 with legendary gear and all boons equiptment against a new Paladin in Icewind Dale.

And I couldnt even get the guy below 75% hitpoints. I tried everything, No amount of damage that I put out on him even scratched him. I hit him with flames of P. and it did 11k damage TOTAL. My pet, and I went damnation line on this. Was 2 shotted by the guy.

I inspect him and he has....blue gear.... Blue gear with no artifact equiptment and I cant even fricken touch him.

In what world would you honestly expect someone to stay with your game looking at this.

Akromatic, I grouped with you last week on the Kessel fight. I was on Mesaana, you played the SW and did 1/4 of the damage I put out with a CW running Draconic gear with no glyphs running the Master of flames tree.

Shouldnt that tell you something. Mod 6 is little over a week away. How the heck do the devs expect Scourge Warlocks to compete?

Why should we stay?

Pretty much every class has this problem with pallies.

we had 2 people in epic gear vs a pally wearing greens and he was outhealing any damage we could get on him.

But I do agree SW has seen better days

ravenan · March 2015

Acromatic is a realy bad player, I mean REALY bad. You should know this.

neverknight5 · March 2015

I have a paladin at 61 with a set of epic gear, if I put on green gear from Minsk and boo quests with never embers helm I get up to 135k hp, I believe this is a bug as the armour does not offer that much hp.

thestaggy · March 2015

I think this is a Paladin issue. I watched a Paladin survive two GWFs, a Trapper and a GF for about 5-minutes in Preview. And these were not low-geared players. PVP-spec, R8s, 9s and Perfects/Pures. The kind of players that would hurt you very quickly in Live.

vasdamas · March 2015

They expect you to be absolutely devoted to one class, have 7th sense for rogues in stealth, learn the power of all class the game has by heart and know all the exploits/multiprocs the other classes have so you can at least try to counter it. Somehow...
That's my view on PvP SW at the moment on live. Haven't tried preview yet but I feel it would be hard emotions for me.

rversant wrote: »

But I do agree SW has seen better days

What do you mean by "better days"? Multiple Puppets swarm bug? I don't think so.

silverkelt · March 2015

SW isnt the only class that will have struggles in mod 6, gwf will be pretty worthless as well.

denvald · March 2015

My post in the official thread, make of it what you will.

denvald wrote: »

Feedback: Fury capstone, lv 70 general feeling with warlock

This is a rant, i think the current situation about warlocks in end game is frustrating, and I wish for someone to explain me why it's been made this way.

Can someone enlighten me on why it was nerfed? I really don't understand it. Is it because someone thought the other two trees wasn't competitive enough so instead of buffing them they nerfed the stronger one?

This is a genuine question, I have no idea why fury was nerfed. It does not make sense to me.

I'm really concerned about warlocks in endgame now, while wizards keep getting cool stuff(Spell twisting, abyss, icy veins, disentegrate) we got a nerf in EVERY aspect of our class that makes us a strong DPS, and I really don't get it.

1. Accursed diabolist set bonus is gone since lv 60 gear is outdated
2. Tyranical threat is nerfed
3. Fury capstone is nerfed
4. Our life steal which is our PRIMARY method of survival is also nerfed. Why don't we remove CWs control to even things out? To be honest this is frustrating, why was this class nerfed in every aspect that makes it good?
5. The abundant HP from gear makes our high con irrevelant in terms of total HP contribution, putting us on par with wizards in terms of total HP. An advantage we had in mod 5.. but not in mod 6 anymore.

If someone didn't want us to play this class anymore just had to tell us to begin with, not only is warlocks the weakest pvp class I now fear they're gunna become the same in PvE.

Feedback: Tyranical threat

Tyranical threat on the other hand was by far the strongest daily power in the game. Let me put it bluntly I can dish out in the average of 3million + DPS in two uses of tyranical threat in one minute in eLoL scorpion fight in live, that's way above every other daily powers. But the problem is not nerfing this power, it's that our class balance depended on it. Warlocks overall have lower sustained dps than other classes and higher burst damage than other classes(namely CW), and it's partly because it's so DoT based, while it's not a bad thing in itself if the wizards end the encounter in 3 seconds you don't get any returns from any potential DoTs..but that's just class design. A fury warlock that did not use Tyranical Threat in a dungeon would get trumped in DPS by their fellow casters. Whereas a warlock (equal skill/gear) using tyranical threat at medium efficiency (like the average player does) would be on par with wizards in terms of DPS. And if you had DC artifact and good skill using it you would be above the others. Nerf tyranical threat and it reduces the overall dungeon DPS performance of a warlock in comparison to other classes.
The problem is the accumulation of losing half of our captsone effectivenes AND nerfing our biggest power that made us competitive in DPS really hits us hard. One without the other... okay. Both? OUCH.

Feedback: Many Class features
Our feats are mediocre in comparison to other classes, seriously.

Dark one's blessing 1k hp restored for killing a target that is cursed, just mentionned that 80% powers consume curse, how often do you kill a cursed target? not often, not only that but the healing done by it is so low that nobody in their right mind would pick this feat currently. If at least it offered something like increased life steal, now that would be a good feat. But now? no.

Deadly Curse 1k ish damage on cursing target. I can't think of this as a good feat, in the meanwhile CWs get chilling presence for 100% damage increase on frozen targets...yay 1k damage?

Warding Curse 10% less damage from cursed targets.. that would be an average feat if not so many powers consumed curse thus making this feat useless in the long run.

Prince of Hell - This feat was useless before but I can see it becoming good in mod 6.. somewhat. I still think this feat should be a % increase of arP not a stat increase.

Dust to Dust, this feat doesn't generate AP when your borrowed time ticks, why not? The description says when your soul sparks heal you, borrowed time makes my spark heal me, so why not? As of now I can't see a reason to slot this on my bar ever.

Snuff out. A single spark out of 30 for one target dying.. with an internal cooldown. What? If at least this feat would generate one pip (6 sparks) or have no internal cooldown and rank ups is +1 spark per rank then sure! other wise? hell no!

Even feats like shadow walk are inferior to other classes. GWF gets the SAME thing but 30% run AND 3% defelct we get.. 30% run and.. nothing, why don't we get 3% life steal or something ? Rogue master infiltrator - 15% run speed, 3% crit, 3% deflect, why don't we get something cool like that too? Between that and Snuff out my choice would be obvious. I could see dark one's blessing becoming this :
3% life steal, 3% crit,15% run speed. Why not? Rogues got the same thing, that's called game balance in my book.

Soul reaping and hope stealer give a 'stat bonus' like 1k life steal, which gets outdated very quickly in most cases because as time goes gear gets stronger and devalues those feats. Why don't we move them to a percentage chance and be done with it? you won't need to change it everytime you change the cap or everytime the gear gap gets too big for what you orginally developped it for. The biggest majority of feats are designed in percentages, which is GOOD. These two deserve the same treatment IMO.

Feedback: Party and group contribution
Most of our abilities and contributions to a party are better covered by another classes.

Temptation - Cleric buffs and debuffs + healing are more effective than warlocks healing
Wizards (and potentially more classes) do more damage than us now because we lost the aspects I mentionned earlier, not only survive better by having shield, CC, roughly the same HP as us warlocks because gear gives so much HP now there is no difference between a warlock HP and CW hp greater than 5k, read my other posts about constitution for that matter. The difference? we get like 5% more life steal thanks to some class feats, that's a big tradeoff for shield,CC,and equivalent HP.

Why is nothing done about it? I cannot think of a SINGLE reason to play a warlock over a DC or a CW. in mod 5 there was at least some things, bigger HP, tyranical threat high dot dps + accursed diabolist... now? nope! I don't feel unique, I feel like a lesser wizard.

Feedback: Options and mod 6 tree specs
So...Damnation? Do i need to mention how often and quickly the soul puppet dies? I'm running around a mojority of the time without half the feats in my tree because the thing keeps dying all the time. Without a serious buff to soul puppet survivabiltiy you can forget it, nobody will play this tree.

Temptation is currently in preview mediocre DPS, and Fury is not very far above it. At least before we could fall back on smart usage of tyranical threat to keep up in DPS with other classes, I can really feel the nerf to the general feeling of my class when I play end game.

Feedback: PvP
Last subject... pvp armor bonus set. I won't get into every that's wrong with the warlock in pvp right now it would take too long to cover it all so I'm going to stick to the armor's set bonus.
The other classes have set bonuses that interact with their class mechanics in some way, granting more stealth, making spell mastery better.. etc. Warlocks? 9% more damage if player is under 20% HP. At which points odds are he's going to eat a massive killing flame and DIE ANYWAYS - the 9% damage? useless. Can't we get something that interacts with our curse or something.. better?

I really held off before posting this because I still thought i was far from mod 6 and things had time to change, but now it's roughly a week away and I can see the red lights going in my head that the SW i see in preview is what I'll become in Live very soon.

Yes, a big part of this post is a rant, but negative and positive feedback both have their place in a feedback forum, I have a lot of ideas about how to improve the performance of SW and make it unique in comparison to other classes, just ask me anytime I might start a general thread about it since discussion is not allowed here.

denvald · March 2015

My conclusion? Play another class, it sounds very silly to me because why should it be this way. I dunno. But the fact the wizard is well taken care of for every mod in the game, and the fact that it's been growing in power even in patches that were supposed to nerf it (I'm looking at you storm spell mod 5) actually made it stronger.

The last of the advantages the SW had over CW were taken away, the regen isn't worth the control bonus because mobs hit like a truck now, you want it disabled not attacking you trust me... and last but not the least, the HP pool, clerics heal better, and debuffs/buffs contributes to more dps than your warlock DPS so what made you special being that you can dps AND heal is really just an illusion, clerics debuff contributes more than your meager DPS.
So what makes warlock different, special even? nothing.

You're a lesser cleric, or a lesser CW or a lesser lesser both.

And then I changed to main CW, my life became good, easy even, there's really no reason to play a warlock right now, wait til mod 12 or whatever when they buff it to max like they did with rogues, that's all im gunna say

schietindebux · March 2015

play another class is a bad option, i won´t play this game because i am not one of these players that feel any kind of fun playing a op class for one mod, feels cheap and sad, no satifaction, so if cryptic fails they will get the bill
i come here to have fun in first line, not to get anoyed by a company

ogarious · March 2015

denvald wrote: »

My conclusion? Play another class, it sounds very silly to me because why should it be this way. I dunno. But the fact the wizard is well taken care of for every mod in the game, and the fact that it's been growing in power even in patches that were supposed to nerf it (I'm looking at you storm spell mod 5) actually made it stronger.

The last of the advantages the SW had over CW were taken away, the regen isn't worth the control bonus because mobs hit like a truck now, you want it disabled not attacking you trust me... and last but not the least, the HP pool, clerics heal better, and debuffs/buffs contributes to more dps than your warlock DPS so what made you special being that you can dps AND heal is really just an illusion, clerics debuff contributes more than your meager DPS.
So what makes warlock different, special even? nothing.

You're a lesser cleric, or a lesser CW or a lesser lesser both.

And then I changed to main CW, my life became good, easy even, there's really no reason to play a warlock right now, wait til mod 12 or whatever when they buff it to max like they did with rogues, that's all im gunna say

Dammit, everyone says that. GO play another class.

NO

Is this Rogue Online, or Neverwinter?
Is this Control Wizard Online, or Neverwinter?
Is this Divine Cleric Online, or Neverwinter?

THIS is the class I've chosen to play, THIS is the class that I've spent my time, and money to work on getting to level 60.

THIS is the class that I've worked to get Rank 8's and 9's on. THIS is the class that I have 5 epic companions on, some I've paid millions of AD into.

THIS is the class I fricken expect the devs to make playable. It's not that **** hard. They've been given advice by EVERYBODY how to do this.

Stop telling those of us that play the warlock to go play a CW or TR or Cleric. If those are classes you want to play, go play the god **** things yourself.

Dont think I can make things any clearer then that.

I would also like to point out to the people in charge that your timer on your main page. Is also the timer for when ESO goes F2P.

Keep that in mind as you ignore our class and make all the money and time we put into it wasted.

We can, and we will, take both elsewhere.

rinat114 · March 2015

ogarious wrote: »

Dammit, everyone says that. GO play another class.

NO

Is this Rogue Online, or Neverwinter?
Is this Control Wizard Online, or Neverwinter?
Is this Divine Cleric Online, or Neverwinter?

THIS is the class I've chosen to play, THIS is the class that I've spent my time, and money to work on getting to level 60.

THIS is the class that I've worked to get Rank 8's and 9's on. THIS is the class that I have 5 epic companions on, some I've paid millions of AD into.

THIS is the class I fricken expect the devs to make playable. It's not that **** hard. They've been given advice by EVERYBODY how to do this.

Stop telling those of us that play the warlock to go play a CW or TR or Cleric. If those are classes you want to play, go play the god **** things yourself.

Dont think I can make things any clearer then that.

I would also like to point out to the people in charge that your timer on your main page. Is also the timer for when ESO goes F2P.

Keep that in mind as you ignore our class and make all the money and time we put into it wasted.

We can, and we will, take both elsewhere.

Thank you. RIP gwfs and sw's.

suicidalgodot · March 2015

ogarious wrote: »

Why are the devs unable to make the Scourge Warlock a viable class for PvP?
[...]

When the Paladin, the Druid, the Bard, and the Monk are balanced, too...

ogarious · March 2015

Lets throw this out there as it is. Since this appears to be a soapbox thread. Hopefully instead of the community Mods just throwing this into the lower depths they will take this to the devs, or at least send a link to the devs.

We dont want to quit Neverwinter, it's not that we have anything personal against those in charge. Hell, I grouped with Akromatic a short time ago and we had fun. But....

I have all legendary artifacts on my scourge Warlock. I've picked up every little piece of green gear that has ever dropped from any dungeon, skirmish, zone fight, and encounter.

I've had my own guild make fun of me for it. Though I was one of the first to get everything to legendary, so I kinda got the last laugh there. I've been kicked out of skirmishes, dungeons, etc by douchbags who get upset when people pick up green gear. (And reported those people)

And I've horded all my RP drops and used them during double RP weekends, etc. Never have I used any shortcuts like 3rd party sites, etc to buy stuff. Though I'm sure it's been done indirectly through the AH before everything became bind on pickup.

I am not going through that again just because they're focusing on other classes. Focus on our class too. It's not that **** hard.

There's plenty of feedback out there telling you what we want. Make it happen. It's nobody's fault but yours if we leave this game. No blaming the market, or 3rd party sites, or p2w whales.

animalust · March 2015

well, SW always had it a little harder than others in IWD PvP.. its mostly companion related, cockatrice shuts an SW down completely..

Were you rank 70 with a full set of lvl 70 gear?

Did they fix the issue where HR could perma daze and destroy a Pally through shield?

SW is still fun and viable in PvP, just very hard since some classes are obviously poorly balances, with poor little SW unable to mitigate ANY DAMAGE that is thrown at it lol add to the fact that the PvP Queue system seems destined to pit you against the very best, but committed to providing you with lack luster teammates.

Akro is not a good example of a top DPS SW btw.

Playing a different class is not the answer..

schietindebux · March 2015

i have a DC and a warlock, and like playing the warlock much more because since mod 5 the DC is broken in the faithfull tree and has some encounter in rightous that are broken as well
if there is only one path viable for warlock i will use it in PVP, if i want to do PVE all time, take hellbringer, and go dungeons all time.
i only want ot point out that even going SB-fury you keep beeing a very good damage dealer in PVE, and in some cases a better one
despite some of you don´t want to hear it, there are at least some player who needs these informations, i guess,
instead of giving up and quitt, give it a try and hope for some adjustements later

what else can I do?
Play DC faithfull and be bored the rest of time, or play faithfull DC with decent arp and kill everyone in ever lasting fights, probably the paladin will be that sort of class, don´t know, but i hate it in advance

zacazu · March 2015

denvald wrote: »

My conclusion? Play another class, it sounds very silly to me because why should it be this way.

or another game...

ogarious wrote: »

Dammit, everyone says that. GO play another class.

NO

Is this Rogue Online, or Neverwinter?
Is this Control Wizard Online, or Neverwinter?
Is this Divine Cleric Online, or Neverwinter?

THIS is the class I've chosen to play, THIS is the class that I've spent my time, and money to work on getting to level 60.

THIS is the class that I've worked to get Rank 8's and 9's on. THIS is the class that I have 5 epic companions on, some I've paid millions of AD into.

THIS is the class I fricken expect the devs to make playable. It's not that **** hard. They've been given advice by EVERYBODY how to do this.

Stop telling those of us that play the warlock to go play a CW or TR or Cleric. If those are classes you want to play, go play the god **** things yourself.

Dont think I can make things any clearer then that.

I would also like to point out to the people in charge that your timer on your main page. Is also the timer for when ESO goes F2P.

Keep that in mind as you ignore our class and make all the money and time we put into it wasted.

We can, and we will, take both elsewhere.

+1...

venjendorz · March 2015

What's frustrating is that Spitfire is still bugged. Give damnation new awesome feat... and it does a FRACTION of the listed tooltip dmg. I can't believe this bug hasn't been fixed yet. It's RAMPANTLY commented on the official SW thread.

foxxy · March 2015

It is not that everyone quits the game, quit the class. U have to admit that is frustrating that all classes keep getting buffs, while our who needs them get nerfs instead. The fact that they are not improving a bad class should tell u something. they dont care about it for next module. otherwise u would see warlock class being reworked in some feats, capstone, encounters and features. but what u see? nothing. As they buff wizard and other classes, its the best option to leave warlock aside for a module and work on another class, at least is guaranted u will have more fun.

ogarious · March 2015

foxxycleopatra wrote: »

It is not that everyone quits the game, quit the class. U have to admit that is frustrating that all classes keep getting buffs, while our who needs them get nerfs instead. The fact that they are not improving a bad class should tell u something. they dont care about it for next module. otherwise u would see warlock class being reworked in some feats, capstone, encounters and features. but what u see? nothing. As they buff wizard and other classes, its the best option to leave warlock aside for a module and work on another class, at least is guaranted u will have more fun.

That just makes them more money though. Why should I reward them for not doing their job. I spend time and money in game making a different character after everything I've put into this one. Then farther down the road once they've milked me enough, they just let that class fall by the wayside and start something else.

Nope, not going to do it. I will not reward poor development. These posts are me giving them a chance to make things right. I am just one voice, but every player in this game is one voice, and losing us one at a time will eventually cost them, not us.

suicidalgodot · March 2015

macjae wrote: »

[...] and the new Temptation capstone will heal for about twice as much as it currently does.[...]

...which helps every other party member quite a bit, but the Templock him-/herself exactly null, nix, zero, nada, zilch, not at all.

schietindebux · March 2015

ok give them a chance to do better ... but as long as i play this game, I fear there will not be a lot comming arround, in case of speaking about a company that does not test the product himself

denvald · March 2015

CWs like to be on top

schietindebux · March 2015

does anyone think temp warlock in PVP is a good choice in mod 6?
from what i read battelfield is gonna be ruled by DC and pala in case of heal
what is the temp warlock going to be? Not good in anything nether in heal nor in damage?

vasdamas · March 2015

denvald wrote: »

CWs like to be on top

I think "I see less dogs in my docks then CWs running around in Neverwinter" would be a good comparison for this game. A class that can literally do everything.

ofnieslaf · March 2015

vasdamas wrote: »

I think "I see less dogs in my docks then CWs running around in Neverwinter" would be a good comparison for this game. A class that can literally do everything.

let see...

heal group = check... chaotic growth

self seal = check... chaotic growth

tank/facetank = check... shield

damage = check, storm spell

control = well its a cw... check

easy mode pve even in mod6 due to massive aoe = check

u are right. its actually the SNEAKIST class of nw, even more sneaky than tr. its the most "Pseudo-nerfed" class of the history of the game. ppl freaked out on that mod4 "nerf" but it was actually a buff, they were made even more powerful. at least cw was only op in pve before and were kinda free kills in pvp like sw is right now. now cw excels in both pvp and pve with no problems at all, since they have everything.

regards

animalust · March 2015

vasdamas wrote: »

I think "I see less dogs in my docks then CWs running around in Neverwinter" would be a good comparison for this game. A class that can literally do everything.

SW definitely seen better days, such as Everything before Mod 5 ^^

dude even when CW's were exploiting the Freeze locking build that cause Crytpic to alomost completely remove CC from CW lol, even then I still felt top of hte world, with my Black Ice gear and 45k HP I could withstand the barrage of the CW, turn around and kill him ;p

But those days are over because while I'm fighting that CW a TR happily stuns and kills me ^^ Oh and then vanishes and in 2 seconds is on your #1 cap point like a Ferrari on a straight.

The REAL problem here, is that they spent a year and a half developing a game filled with SOloists, personal defenses and a Leet mentality made it so most people dont use most classes in pvp, there is little to not give a **** by most players.

Mod 6 is trying to convert the game into what most MMO's are, where you need specific classes to do specific things. Dont want to die in 1 shot? Need a Tank to place Guard on you (Knights Valor?) Running Low on Health? Need a Cleric to Heal you (No Lifesteal stat or in combat regen).

Its not a bad thing, its just that if they wanted to be liek other games they should have been that way from the start ^^ but im sure they wanted to be different (a major reason why i liek this game) and make it so that if you can stat it, you can play it.

the issueI have is that im being forced out of my Casual Lifestyle and into a Hardcore PvP guild if I plan on doing anything useful , since there will be absolutely no way for me to survive on my own without a healer ( of course, that is if I am unable to stack my Lifesteal CHance to 30-40%) thanks to the loss of regen and lifesteal Chance,.

another problem is, okay, so I have to go to a hardcore pvp guild, who says they are going to want my SW in the PvP Premade groups lol, when Im sure they have an infinite number of geared players and classes that are outperforming SW in general. Il end up in a guild that has a stuck up attitude, and potentially members that IUm not friends with = boring time playing an MMO.

Sorry if some of this doesnt soudn right, ive been typing this for hours while working lol

yuccapalm · March 2015

I dont get why ppl cry about SW. There is one on page 2 that means the class is good enough for PvP they outheal most of my dmg as TR I can barely kill them without daily. I guess most people are just too bad to play their sw with the right gear and build. The class doesnt really need buffs but other classes need some nerfs...

Why are the devs unable to make the Scourge Warlock a viable class for PvP?

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